ATSC 3.0 - Oh boy
 

I guess I won't need to worry about how long my flat panel lasts...
:wtf:

http://www.c2meworld.com/distributio...-3-0-advances/

"The most differentiating characteristic of ATSC 3.0 is that it will not be backward-compatible with 1.0 or even 2.0, which is now in development. In other words, televisions now capable of processing over-the-air TV signals will not be able to decode ATSC 3.0 signals. "

I doubt there will be converter boxes available to go from atsc 3 back to atsc 2, or 1. And I guarantee there will not be one to go back to ntsc. I think the only reason they did it for the ntsc this time around was that there were sets from the 50's theoretically still in use.... I guess tv's will go the way of cell phones, every few years they will come up with something else.... The only good thing I see in that story is the distributed transmission thing... But I would imagine if they can't get people to pay for it, and general tv viewership continues to decline, both adoption, a partially implemented distributed transmission scheme will mean the end of OTA tv of any kind, and it will further splinter into today's broadcast channels, cable channels, and internet providers like netflix and their tv shows. I think this system will take quite a while to sell to broadcasters, I don't think it will fly with the public all that well, and more people will just give up tv.

Thanks for posting the story.

Betcha dollars to donuts that a 3.0 set won't even power up without a persistent internet connection back to the tracking/ad insertion server.

Chip

Or it won't do anything if you don't have a active contract on it.... like a cell phone.

And the money grab goes on...

Active connection? Contract? I don't think so!!! Looks like I'll go back to reading books

The little independent stations here have fallen to companies like OTA, who will likely migrate the spectrum they occupy toward wireless data like CDMA 450 or whatever replaces it.

TV is living on borrowed time. I'm starting to think about a world run by a "Raymond Cockteau" from Demolition Man and a screen telling me to "Be Well". Just about time to go get a broccoli banana shake and sing "I wanna be an Oscar Meyer weiner".

Sounds like it's time to start from scratch and band together to start our own ANALOG OTA and cable networks. Stick it to the suit dummies.

Time to expand my OTA DVD and VHS recordings of the good stuff available on This TV and Antenna TV while it lasts..... I really thought this system was not going to be changed for quite a while if ever in the rest of my lifetime.....

This time, the junk might actually work!

Why? I suspect that the early ATSC 3 sets will be quite expensive and in short supply. Therefore, there *will* be a demand for converter boxes... If a consumer demand exists, there will be a product to meet the demand.

jr

...to go from ATSC3 to HDMI, and which will inevitably come complete with whatever DRM du jour. How many do you think are going to have analog RF out, or even composite?

And there almost certainly will never be anything going from ATSC3 to ATSC1, simply due to the licensing crap surrounding ATSC. Ever seen a consumer device of any sort that had ATSC output?

The ATSC 1.0 format was supposed to be "forward-compatable" so upgrades could be downloaded "invisibly"...

The operative word is "supposed to be". The people who are in control learned that they could migrate from technology to technology holus-bolus from the cellular/PCS business. It also forces you buy new gear, so the manufacturers can keep into the adopter profit zone.

Or drive themselves out of business. It would look good on them.

Uh, NO!

It was very consciously designed to be un-upgradeable. I'm
referring to the physical layer.

New sets should be monitors only, with an upgradable OTA plug in. When ATSC was released it was based on MPEG2, the same as DVDs. It was already behind MPEG4. Why not have a system where the broadcasters can upgrade their equipment and transmit changes to the tuner?

It would never happen because it would make sense. What they really want to do is sell us a new Whiiznit 9000 4HD OLED 3D pentron smart ubervision, allowing the companies to meet their bottom line before market saturation occurs. It wouldn't surprise me if they went to a three-year contract on the things like cell phones.

Cable in my area insists on their STB, and with that MPEG-4 for HD. The SD QAM is still MPEG2, but entirely encrypted meaning either way, a set top box, and another less than adequate remote that can barely control 1/2 of what I need on the TV itself. The required set top box is sold on a two year programming "commitment" which is a nice way of saying "contract".

Just imagine the viruses and malware fun that might happen...

...and the specific warranty exclusion clause.

It wouldn't surprise me to see ATSC (and converter boxes) gone soon, as today's generation couldn't care less about any technology more than a few minutes old. Just browse CraigsList and see what iPad2's, or last year's video game consoles are going for. Or look in my living room at the FOUR Sony plasma XBR TVs, which sold for $18,000 each in 2004, and which I picked up between $0 and $250 in good working order.

Charles

Hi to all,

It looks as though broadcast standards are being "updated" as fast as commercial software.

Case in hand: the DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcast-Terrestrial) over here in France (Europe).

In 2005 we had MPEG-2 encoding, 6 multiplex signals in a 8 MHz UHF channel.
Resolution was SD + a few HD channels, 3 to a UHF channel.

In Dec 2012, we got 6 new HD channels, this time encoded in MPEG-4.
a new digital tuner is needed to receive these channels.

Some other European countries have adopted the more advanced DVB-T2 encoding scheme which is incompatible with our domestic system.

Now there is talk about adopting Hvec encoding, more efficient, but incompatible.

And now - Stop the Press! should there be a terrestrial delivery system for OTA 4K resolution?

Conclusion: every 2-3 years you need to change your tuner.

In America, you've had ATSC HD since 1993, that's not a bad track record in today's world...

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

Well, you can feed the ATSC 3.0 convertor to an ATSC 1.0 set-top box and then to your NTSC TV. I know it's convoluted, but it should work, at least in theory. Sometimes I think we need to slow all this stuff down until we catch up. :p

Most people did not know about it until 2007 or later, and there were almost half as many in 1993 that did know about it as there are now that still don't know about it.

...

Technology as a whole is really starting to depress me. I was so busy lamenting over the loss of CRT TVs in stores that I nearly didn't realize that rear projectors (Even DLP!!!) are now gone from the shelves, too! Cell phones being replaced every year, TVs failing after three years, and now this...I wish it would all just SLOW DOWN.

Yeah, me too. There are times I wish we'd put more money into things like cancer research instead of ATSC 3.0, but I'm getting close to that line we should never cross. I guess I'm just blowing off steam, I lost my mother to cancer last week. :(

Back on topic, I don't care if I see a program in 405 line British or ASTC Hi-Def telelvisiomn, the content and story are the most important to me.

What really gets to me is that the drug companies spend several times what is spent on new drug research for TV ads for "ED medication" (Viagra, Cialis, etc). That and the fact that in Canada the EXACT same meds they sell here go for tiny fractions of the price they sell for here (and they are still making a decent profit in Canada)....The Pharmaceutical companies are basically raping us....

If some politicians who wrote a law(/tax) that is beginning to royally mess up health insurance weren't in the pocket of the pharmaceuticals that law might have actually had ONE good aspect to it...I wonder how lobbing (bribery) expenditures of the pharmaceuticals compares to research spending?....

The FCC is similarly screwed up. Instead of regulating the airwaves to prevent signal conflicts, preventing broadcast standards changes that obsolete equipment currently in use, etc like they did when they were run by engineering minded folks, it is instead all about the money they can get from the cellphone, etc companies by selling bandwidth, and which political buts they can kiss.

The thing to remember is that they might try to address the shortcomings of ATSC 1.whatever. Or, I'm just being foolishly optimistic.

I don't think I have watched much that was not ATSC since late 2000, and that was mostly football games in the early 2000s, other than when I had a satellite-TV subscription until late 2005.

You got it......

The US Government is a Bribery Driven Government.

That is basically why almost everything they do no one likes....

I don't recall even knowing about ATSC until I first read about the digital transition (which I still think was a joke).